Abrasive blasting, commonly referred to as sandblasting, has been widely utilized in industry as a method for cleaning and deburring objects. Applications of abrasive blasting may include methods to prepare surfaces with attractive finishes or to texturize the finish material of a surface. In other applications, surfaces of articles may require sandblasting to remove scale or debris from a product. In yet another application, sandblasting techniques may be employed in order to enhance the finish of a product surface, for example, to improved paint adhesion of the product surface. For proper adhesion of coatings, it is sometimes preferable to completely clean the exterior surface of a product and in some instances preferably roughen the surface via abrasion or by surface etching.
It may be important to consider several factors when employing sandblasting techniques in abrasive blasting operations. For example, one consideration may include preparing a texturized surface such that it is treated to have a uniform appearance. There have been attempts to achieve this objective in the prior art, but, in some instances, the processes developed have been ineffective or wasteful. For example, an operator may be employed to manually move a sandblasting apparatus back and forth across the face of an article in an effort to treat its surface. Typical sandblasting operations have utilized a sandblasting gun to perform such manual sandblasting procedures. However, this method of texturizing/treating a surface can be expensive due to its labor intensive nature. In addition, in instances where uniformity may be important in the mass production of parts or products, the sandblasting results, in the aforementioned manner, may not be sufficiently uniform from one treated article to another. These variations may result from differences that exist between individual operators as well as variances in each operator's actions from article to article in the sandblasting treatment process.
It may also be important to employ a certain degree of care when performing sandblasting operations on surfaces of articles. For example, when treating relatively thin parts, care should be taken during the sandblasting process in order to avoid unintentional deformations to the part. The likelihood of such deformations can occur with the increased number of passes of a nozzle of a sandblasting gun in various attempts to achieve complete uniform coverage or a desired look and/or texture to the surface of an article. Thus, there is a need for an apparatus and method for removing previous coatings, deposits, rust and/or scale from surfaces of articles which also considers the incorporation and/or placement of sandblasting nozzles. Such care may include limiting the number of passes of a sandblasting nozzle while maximizing the treated sandblasted area.
In a typical abrasive blasting set-up, a sandblasting nozzle is generally provided and coupled to additional hardware components that provide the abrasive particles. A means to stimulate the particles through the nozzle is commonly provided by pressurized air attached to the nozzle. For larger areas of application, a plurality of nozzles may be provided to treat a predetermined area. In this instance, a pressurized air source and a sandblasting particle source would be required for each nozzle to perform the sand blasting operation. In a typical arrangement, an air pressure inlet hose and a sand inlet line are coupled to the nozzle such as by clamping means. However, the aforementioned configuration requires additional hardware in order to provide pressurized air and sandblasting material to each nozzle. Additional hardware may also typically include a number of control valves employed, for instance, to regulate the air flow to each nozzle. Thus, this arrangement can be expensive and cumbersome to use due to the additional components required during sandblasting operations.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus that provides extended coverage greater in some instances than would otherwise be obtained by a sandblasting gun or single nozzle. It is also desirable to provide a method and apparatus that treats articles relatively evenly and in a suitably uniform manner without undesirably damaging the article. Finally, a need exists to provide a method and apparatus to simplify the sandblasting procedure and hardware setup including a reduction in the number of control valves as well.